420 School Psychology
Board of Education, 1938; City of Chicago, Board of Educa-
tion, 1941). These sources give clear indication that psycho-
logical workers were often providing remediation, counseling,
and in-service instruction in addition to conducting regular and
special education assessments.
Service delivery was increasingly provided by district-
based psychologists. However, services through school and
community clinics or research bureaus were common in large
and medium-sized cities, and some rural areas were served
through traveling clinics. In the latter model, services were
provided by small teams of workers (e.g., a psychiatrist, a
psychologist, and a social worker) traveling to small districts
and providing evaluations, recommendations, and consulta-
tion on a periodic basis. Such services lacked the continuity
that could be provided by a district served by its own school
psychologist. By the end of the period, as many as 500 school
psychologists may have been employed in connection with
the schools.
Emerging Symbols of Professionalization (1940–1970)
Despite the general expansion of school psychology from
1920 to 1940, only a few symbols of professionalization were
evident (training and credentialing), and they appeared in
only a few locales. Even a code of ethics had yet to be offi-
cially adopted, although the APA would celebrate its 50th
birthday in 1942. The period 1940 to 1970 would see the fur-
ther expansion of these symbols and the emergence of others
in the form of organizational identity, literature, professional
recognition, and accreditation. By the mid-1960s, the field
was rapidly expanding through training, credentialing, and
employment that set the stage for the Thoroughbred Years to
follow.
Organizational Developments
Participating in a broad effort to consolidate psychology
groups to assist with government efforts during World War II,
the AAAP, along with several smaller groups, merged with
the APA in 1945. The new APA had 19 divisions, includ-
ing the former divisions of the AAAP and Division 16,
specifically for school psychologists (Fagan, 1993). Al-
though the division struggled for survival during its first sev-
eral years, it provided a national organizational identity for
practicing school psychologists that had not been available in
the AAAP. The division was weak in comparison to those
serving clinical, educational, and counseling psychology. In
part, this was because its members were divided in their loy-
alty to other divisions (many had previously belonged to the
educational or clinical sections of AAAP) and because the di-
vision accepted as members only practicing school psycholo-
gists. The membership requirement limited the number of
academics that could join the division, which also reduced its
research contributions and scientific image. Owing to these
weaknesses and the general lack of a clear identity, the divi-
sion did not share in the professional advancements of clini-
cal and counseling psychology until the late 1960s. For
example, the division did not achieve the status of awarding
a diploma in school psychology as part of the American
Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP) until 1968, nor
did it share in accreditation until the beginning of the next
period.
Despite these weaknesses, the division accomplished
many things. In 1953, the APA adopted a code of ethics, and
the division was active in adapting the code to the needs of
school practitioners. The division’s convention programs and
professional institutes were highly successful. It broadened
membership to include academics and improved the status
of nondoctoral members. A highlight of the period was the
Thayer Conference of 1954, the proceedings of which were
widely distributed (Cutts, 1955). The conference forged an
identity for school psychology. It specified two levels of
training and credentialing, with nondoctoral personnel ex-
pected to be under the supervision of doctoral-level school
psychologists and to carry titles such as “school psychologi-
cal examiner.” Subsequently, standards for preparation at two
levels and efforts to accredit programs at two levels were im-
plemented but with little success.
Unlike clinical and counseling psychology, school psy-
chology within the APA was unable to shed its nondoctoral
practitioner advocacy, despite an allegiance to the doctoral
requirement for full status as a psychologist. By the 1960s,
fewer than 10% of the field’s practitioners held doctoral
degrees, and most positions were filled by persons with mas-
ter’s degrees who wanted better national and state-level
representation than the APA or its state affiliates provided.
The first separate state association for school psychologists
was formed in Ohio in 1943. By 1970, 17 states had separate
associations for school psychologists. In 1968, the Ohio
School Psychologists Association organized a conference
in Columbus, Ohio, attended by representatives of several
states who chose to establish in 1969 a separate national
group, the National Association of School Psychologists
(NASP). In the same year, the Division of School Psycholo-
gists changed its name to School Psychology in order to
reflect a broader representation of school psychology as a
field of study in addition to persons who worked as school
psychologists.